Moot Thoughts & Musings

Lately, Ellis has been into the movie Finding Nemo (I know, someday he'll discover there's life beyond Pixar, but the secret's safe with us now). He'll sign "watch, fish" when he wants to watch it. It's pretty cute. Well, it's touched Daddy's soft spot, let me tell you.

Last week, I was really dragging, and Chris insisted that he would take Ellis with him on a couple of errands. I didn't need much convincing. They got back 2 hours later with a 10 gallon tropical fish tank! He told me he originally went to Petsmart for the goldfish and the bowl, but got totally hooked by the Fish Enthusiast salesclerk. I did not know any of this was happening. We are holding off putting fish in the tank until after our vacation.

In order to satiate the anticipation that goads us every time we walk past this empty fish tank, Chris suggested totally randomly out of the blue after breakfast that we go to Baltimore to the aquarium that very day! C is my major home-body introvert, so I jumped at his suggestion. Though, after talking about it, we decided to hit up the more local Camden aquarium instead, saving Baltimore for better laid plans. And we invited Ellis's best girlfriend Maddie and her parents along. And it turned out to be a crazy fun rainy day.

Now when you start the day thinking of Baltimore's aquarium and end it going to Camden's, it's a little anticlimactic. And the crowds were merciless. I took E's CI off and wished I could be deaf, too. The noise was dreadful! It's hard to know if the aquarium would've been easier to maneuver without so many people. It was a decent aquarium, but not stunning. Some highlights we managed to find at the very end: the hippo with the underwater glass so you could see him swimming (and pooping! and everyone yelling "eewww!") and the shark tunnel. I like all the tropical fish tanks, but it was hard to get a good look. And I had hoped for more jellies, but maybe they're more of a special exhibit kind of item.

The kids loved it. Ellis would stop at a tank awhile and then turned around and sign "more fish". Maddie kept saying "fissshh" "shakkk" "upoh" (hippo) and signing along with E.

And it was fun hanging out in the backseat with Amanda, being slap happy in the rain, finding McD's somewhere in Philly as we snaked through the rainy streets home, opting for better scenery than the congested interstate. Being with our buds totally upped the fun factor several notches! They probably took better pics; I had trouble not getting blurry pictures.